Pune to host national robotics contest

Pune, March 4 (IANS) Thirty-eight teams from engineering colleges around India are to participate in a contest here March 8-9 where the robots made by them will compete to steal pots of ‘butter’. Aptly called ‘Mission Govinda’, inspired by Hindu Lord Krishna’s childhood stories of stealing butter, the national robotic contest will have teams from all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and region engineering colleges competing at the event being held at Maharashra Institute of Technology (MIT).

The winner and the runner-up team will participate in the International Robocon to be held in August, also in Pune.

Each team will have to make robots that will help their robotic team to get low density polystyrene (symbolizing butter) from bowls (symbolizing yoghurt) which the opponent robotic team tries to dodge. The team that successfully gets butter from all three pots hung at various places in the stadium will win.

According to A.M Chakradeo, chairman of the contest committee, “It is not as easy as it sounds, it’s a battle of intellect and technology. It involves game plans and the top brains of the country to battle it out in the arena. The robots have to go on top of one another to achieve success.”

Chief convener of the ABU Asia Pacific Robot contest ‘08, Sunil Karad appealed to the industry: “We want the industry to come and sponsor the teams. Everywhere in world the response is so good because they have lots of funds.”

Maharashtra Institute of Technology, the official convener of the event, plans to raise Rs.5 million from sponsors and other internal sources. The international event will cost Rs.25-30 million while the domestic event will cost Rs.1.4 million.

According to Chakradeo, Indian teams face a lot of financial crunch since they have to spend around a million rupees to create robots. Teams from Vietnam and China are very aggressive and technologically advanced.